


For the Love of John Watson

by Spyre



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: A hint of mystrade, AU, Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Dry Humping, First Kiss, Fluff, Hard kisses, John's Gay Backstory, M/M, Rough Sex, Smut, Soft Kisses, Sweetness, Top John, Top John Watson, striplock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-19 04:35:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9418988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spyre/pseuds/Spyre
Summary: In which Sherlock gets a crash course in Doctor John Watson's darkest secrets... whether he wants it or not.





	1. Angst, Sex, and... Lestrade's Arse?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmish/gifts), [starrysummernights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrysummernights/gifts).
  * Inspired by ['A Learning Curve' or 'How Sherlock Seduced John Without Trying'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1562462) by [emmish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmish/pseuds/emmish), [starrysummernights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starrysummernights/pseuds/starrysummernights). 



> Without emmish and starrysummernights, this fic would not exist. Please check out their blindingly HOT fic linked herein. This is only my second Johnlock fic! My hope is to never stop improving. I can't do that without honest feedback! Thank you guys so much!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter in which John experiences A FUCKING LOT, Mycroft gets caught ogling Lestrade, and Sherlock may just... LOSE HIS MIND... because of the feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woaf. My my very first beta and brit picker. She put so much work into this fic, and I have learned so much already. Thank you.

John stared at Sherlock, head tilted slightly in disbelief, as if changing the angle of the world would help him make sense of it. What made it all so difficult was the slurry of alcohol in his blood that was inhibiting adequate oxygen transfer in the higher processes of his brain matter. He didn’t even remember drinking, but he must have drank too much at some point. It was the only explanation.

He realized a bit late that his jaw had dropped, and he promptly swallowed it closed. A hard bulb of terror and thrill stuck in the cricoid rings of his trachea. There grew a gravid expanse of possibility between himself and his best friend.

As for Sherlock, he stood two steps away in the common area of the flat. The glow of the hearth, the kitchen and the lamp by the couch gilded him in eerie light, ethereal. His long fingers fluttered expertly over the buttons of his shirt, dislodging the round disks from their slits.

Slowly, a lengthening V-path of skin revealed itself. His movements were not languid, but efficient. His gaze shifted from the task at hand to watch the expression on John Watson’s face morph from confusion, to shock, to terror, finally settling on helpless desire.

“Did you understand what I just said to you, John?”

John gasped, chest expanding in one great breath. “Honestly, no,” he pushed the words out with all of that air, making a humorous sigh of his admission. The smile that followed was wobbly.

Such characteristic honesty pleased Sherlock to no end, and he relished how wide John’s eyes went when he deftly maneuvered the tailored shirt from his shoulders and let the fine fabric drop to the carpet behind him. There poised a shirtless Sherlock Holmes, his mercurial eyes sparkling with amusement at John’s rapid, shallow respirations.

Sherlock looked down at his own hands as he placed thumbs and forefingers at the fastening of his trousers. Pop went the button, followed unceremoniously by the slip of the fly, allowing the corners of the black trousers to feather open.

“Wait. Wait,” John stuttered, uneasy, licking his lips in nervousness and desperation.

Sherlock paused, chin tucked down as he kept looking at the waistband of his own pants. He waited for a span of a few thunderous heartbeats. A tiny, wicked smile creeped from one corner of his mouth to the other before settling into a mesmerizing, self-satisfied smirk.

The blasphemous confidence of that small expression awoke something feral in John’s gut, and his trepidation gave way to a familiar, desirous aggression.

Sherlock chose that very moment to push his thumbs into the fabric of his pants, as if about to divest himself of the rest of his clothes.

John furrowed his brows and growled in frustration, “Stop,” he commanded.

Sherlock instantly recognized the change in the man’s tone, and lifted his eyes to meet those of his friend. Never had he witnessed such heat and intensity in the sapphire darkness of John Watson’s irises. They were now punctuated by enlarged pupils, polished to brilliance with predatory light.

John’s mouth was set in a grim line, his fists now clenched. Sherlock wasn’t sure quite what John was going to do, fight him or… leave?! He watched, flabbergasted, as John marched to the door.

Sherlock pivoted to watch his friend’s retreating back, feeling briefly off-kilter. The door slammed, and it made Sherlock jump.

But John had only closed it, had stayed inside with Sherlock.

Sherlock felt a bit unsure now.

He watched John’s hands slowly unclench, watched the tension harden those square shoulders. He watched as John turned, his eyes honed into the fading flames inside the hearth. Most definitely not looking at Sherlock.

“Turn around,” John ordered with calm authority. When Sherlock hesitated, John repeated himself in a lower register, dangerous, “Turn around now.”

Sherlock frowned, arched a brow, but did as he was told.

It was only then that John looked at the taller man, attention moving instantly to Sherlock’s long back, hash marked with scars. John felt a powerful emotion wash through him, and he began to shake a little. He stepped closer to his friend, the mad man who had captivated his imagination, his life, and for pity’s sake, the wildling before him had claimed John’s heart as well.

He knew he was roundly screwed up.

John reached out to let his palm hover over the scars. Sherlock sensed the movement, stilled, waited.

John did not touch there, however. He looked up at his friend’s hair. He let his fingertips reach up and brush at the softest curls of black hair that fringed Sherlock’s head like a crown. He then placed his hands on Sherlock’s bare shoulders, feeling the deltoid muscles flex beneath his caress.

John’s breathing deepened, became more pronounced, nose flaring as he tried to get a handle on the heady power of the moment.

Sherlock’s ears perked at John's tremulous respirations, the shells of cartilage pinking along with his cheeks and throat. He let his hands hang elegantly at his sides, closing his eyes and cataloguing the feel of John Watson’s careful ministrations. He hadn’t let John see the scars, the evidence of his torturous escapades, until now.

Unfortunately, John’s experience as a doctor made him painfully aware of the trauma that would have been required to make these marks so violent and large, even after all this time to heal. John leaned forward and placed a small kiss on one scar before he even recognized the impulse to do it. The act startled him more than it did Sherlock.

“John, let me see you,” Sherlock implored quietly. He did not want to break the spell, did not want John to run. He felt the shorter man rest his forehead against his back. Sherlock shivered when John’s hands ran down the lengths of his arms, coming to circle his wrists. Sherlock began to tremble. He turned his hands, fingers splayed open, asking.

John acquiesced and held Sherlock’s hands then, squeezing them as a sweeping sense of tragedy disturbed his euphoria. John felt like he was going to choke, or sink through the floor and into the earth. Or both.

Sherlock let go of his friend’s hands and turned. John looked up into his face, lost. Sherlock took his hands again and held them resolutely.

“You’ve known. You must have known,” Sherlock insisted.

“I don’t know anything. Not anymore.”

“It is… It has become… the simplest thing,” Sherlock whispered, wanting to crush John to him but restraining himself. His grip moved from John’s hands to his upper arms.

Gazing into the pale eyes of his friend, John suddenly felt dizzy, and exposed. He tried to take a deep, calming breath before attempting to speak, searching Sherlock’s face for understanding, “What are you talking about? It’s not simple. It never has been. Why can’t I just… not do this again?”

“Again?” Sherlock queried, a crinkle forming between his eyebrows, looking perplexed.

“Shaun,” was all John could say before his vision exploded.

In that very instant, 221B melted away into cataclysmic torrents, revealing a reddened sky and a sandstorm on a desert horizon. John had his hand fisted in the camouflage jacket of a tall, masculine figure, just now coming into sharp focus as if surfacing out of a memory. It was most definitely not Sherlock. His name was Shaun, and his dark brown hair was shorn close to the scalp.

John had the other man pressed back against the sandbags of a machine gunner’s nest. Their hardened cocks still tucked into trousers, grinding against each other in a fiercely passionate embrace. John was controlling the other soldier’s torso with a possessive grip at his uniform top. He pulled Shaun down to claim his mouth.

There was a bump of teeth and artless kissing before John forced them a few centimeters apart, “No one hears about this, yeah?”

“Secret’s safe with me, doc, just don’t fucking stop,” the Irishman’s grin was devastatingly charming. John killed it with another crushing kiss, palming the other man’s erection between them, eliciting a moan. John released hold of the man’s uniform and covered his mouth quite forcefully with his hand. Shaun seemed to like that, bucking his hips desperately and grabbing at John’s rounded arse.

John bit back his own sounding of terrific want, feeling his tongue plump and bleed from the effort, “Sherlock,” he murmured, breathing rapid and unduly ragged.

He felt strange, like a panic attack was upon him. Reality careened around him, the memory of Shaun wrenched away. Flickers and flashes of Sherlock played like a parody of a primary school flip book. This was wrong.

He was suddenly transported, totally disoriented in the resultant blackness. Instantaneous panic. Was he blind? No. It was a bedroom masked in quasi-darkness. He was blinking rapidly, covered in sweat. Drenched with it, in fact, hot. He was kneeling on a bed, his hard cock fully embedded within a warm, tight orifice bracketed by long, powerful legs to either side of him.

That was all he could register before the electrical storm of coitus plastered his skull with unchecked need. His civil nature, the publicly acceptable John Watson was no more. He was the animal within, pummeling his length into a firm arse, his hands were but steely vices at slender, bony hips.

The grunts and yelps and moans were intermingled, unmistakably male.

“Sherlock!” he called between a sob and ecstasy. He felt like he was falling. At his needy cry, an eager, sweaty hand grappled onto his wrist, grounding him. It was Sherlock’s hand. They were in Sherlock’s room, in 221B.

“Yes. Fuck me, John,” came Sherlock’s breathless demand, his long, nude body a mixture of shadow, alabaster white, and patches of blushing pink. 

John gritted his teeth, inexplicably turned on at the sound of such plebian filth issuing from those pure, patrician lips. Apparently, he had at some point, if only temporarily, laid waste to that incredible mind by way of brutal fucking. He snapped his hips with devastating force and rapidity. He felt like he had been fucking forever, like he could go on fucking forever, as long as it was Sherlock Holmes he was fucking.

The remnants of Sherlock’s baritone voice, the exhalations from his lover with each pronounced intrusion, spun John’s straining grip on reality.

“Love you… so... fucking… much,” he declared as he punished that sweetness between Sherlock’s legs. He could see now, Sherlock’s erection bouncing in time with the thrusts. He saw Sherlock’s right arm flung above his head, hand braced against the headboard, counteracting the force of John’s passionate assault. Sherlock’s dark head of curls was limp on the pillow, and the tendrils stuck to his ears and face with perspiration.

Sherlock’s gorgeous mouth was parted, and his head tilted back as John ground his hips in circles now. Sherlock arched nearly off of the mattress, exposing his throat, profiled in shadows. His rectus abdominus muscles flexed, his narrow waist gyrating in time with the doctor’s terrifically dominant onslaught.

The words Sherlock whined and whimpered out next sent John over the precipice of human understanding:

“John… I do, too… love you… love this. Only you…”

The realization that this was happening washed over him like a cool wave and he shivered, frozen in time, in his mind. It wasn’t the sex. It was the raw emotion. It was his own, private Pandora’s box of repressed feeling and memory, shattered open by the words Sherlock had spoken. Fear and sadness overwhelmed him as surely as a riptide.

Goosebumps raised simultaneously across his naked body, leaving him gasping. He had only once before felt so utterly exposed, so vulnerable, so lost. It had been Shaun, the devilish Irishman who had turned John upside down and inside out.

The unexpected sound of rapid gunfire and explosions made ice run through his arteries where molten lava had once burned.

“No!” he screamed, and he was crying. How long had he been crying? He thrashed. The report of assault rifles, the blaring song of .50 caliber machine guns, and the angry screams of soldiers surrounded him like a blanket. He had no weapon. He fought, though. Oh, how he fought to breathe, to survive. And Sherlock watched helplessly from the side of his hospital bed, pressing the nurse call button with ferocity.

“Someone! Come here, help him!” Sherlock shouted, restraining John as best he could. The doctor, his best friend, his stubborn self-appointed protector was savagely strong for such a compact man. Particularly in the throes of a nightmare.

That was the worst of it. John was stuck in his mind and did not know it. This was the thirtieth hour since the accident, since John had hit the bottom of the lake when he was knocked off the side of the boat. There had been bleeding on his brain, but nothing catastrophic, at least according to the CAT scan and the MRI.

“Wake up. Please, wake up,” Sherlock heard himself saying when the nurse and patient care technicians came hurrying in with the restraints. The doctor had signed off on their usage only a couple of hours ago, but Sherlock couldn’t bare the sight of them until absolutely necessary. With the saline drip and catheter, however, it could wait no longer.

He moved out of the way. He folded his arms to keep his hands busy. He did not want to watch other people, strangers, tie John down. Sherlock just wanted to run, really, but he had to stay, for John Watson. His best friend. For the love of his life. How absolutely stupid was that? And how absolutely, freakishly horrible to have his feelings returned openly through the one-sided narration of John’s dream-state. He had heard more than he ever cared to know, some private and horrible things that made Sherlock feel as if he had betrayed John on an entirely new level.

One nurse prepared a sedative and administered it in one swift push through the needleless port on his IV. John’s eyes fluttered open, unseeing, swinging from one side of the room to the other before closing again. He pulled at the ankle and wrist restraints, and then strained less and less until he was boneless and panting.

He finally succumbed to a truly peaceful slumber not ten minutes later.

Sherlock remained glued in the same spot, staring at John’s face. John loved him, as in romantically, but something bad had happened between his best friend and a man named Shaun, a soldier, an Irishman. No, Sherlock thought to himself, not just a man: a case!

Sherlock furrowed his brow and approached the hospital bed. He bent down, laying a hand on John’s forehead. He hesitated, brushing John’s beautiful, silver hair from his brow. He deliberated with himself, and decided to err on the side of sentiment. He placed a soft, cool kiss to John’s temple.

“Love you, too,” he whispered, tamping down the emotion that welled beneath the utterance of these words. Come back to me, he thought shamelessly, though did not say aloud. He had already said enough.

Sherlock did not entertain guilt at John’s injury. John lived for the cases, almost as much as Sherlock. At times, it was precarious work, but work fitting for the two of them. Neither one of them would have it any other way. Not yet, at least. John would not have approved of needless guilt. Not any more. He would, however, disapprove of what Sherlock was about to do.

He wanted to find out everything he could about Shaun the soldier. He also needed to retrieve some things in order to stay with John in the hospital room. He would return as quickly as possible. He gave one last glance to John before exiting into the hall.

“You look absolutely wretched,” Mycroft observed.

Sherlock groaned in disappointment, turning his eyes on his brother who, despite his harsh words, actually looked concerned. Sherlock did not have the energy for banter, “What is it that you want?”

Mycroft seemed to measure Sherlock’s response carefully. He subsequently flicked a hand to Anthea who stepped into view with a small suitcase, proffering it to Sherlock who stared at it suspiciously.

“I assumed that you wouldn’t leave his side to take care of… things,” Mycroft wafted a manicured finger as if to encompass all of Sherlock, “So here you are…” – Mycroft stared at Sherlock. Sherlock stared back. – “Take the gift Sherlock, if not for your sake, then for John’s. Because he will wake.”

“I know he will,” Sherlock snapped, finally taking the small piece of luggage, “If you really want to do something for me, find out what you can about a man John served with. His first name was Shaun. Irish. They were in Afghanistan together.”

Mycroft seemed a bit surprised by the request, though nodded once, “Certainly. Shouldn’t be much trouble.”

Detective Inspector Lestrade rounded the corner just then. Mycroft caught sight of him, watching him probably closer than strictly necessary.

“Oi, it’s not visitin’ hours,” called a male nurse who probably was already aggravated by Mycroft’s presence. Lestrade flashed a badge and the nurse scowled and continued his rounds.

Mycroft cringed inwardly at Lestrade’s somewhat rumpled appearance. He thought the detective had to be commended, though, for somehow being attractively rumpled, if there was such a thing.  _Rugged, perhaps?_

“Hello, all,” the detective greeted, and on seeing Mycroft, he faltered a bit but shrugged his shoulders, paying strict attention to Sherlock, “How is he?”

Mycroft could have sighed, but was not wanting to attract Sherlock's attention. Ill-fitting suits be damned, though they could not hide Lestrade's pert arse. _Probably bought the suits off of a rack. Shudder to think._

“No change,” the younger Holmes answered simply, sharp eyes practically boring a hole into Mycroft’s expressionless face. Sherlock grunted darkly at the horrifying deduction just registering in his tired brain, “I thank you for the thoughtful gesture, _brother_ , but please do ogle Lestrade on your own time. It does little for my spirits, makes me sort of… queasy.”

Mycroft’s gaze went steely. If looks could kill, Sherlock would have been pushing daisies then and there.

Lestrade perked up a bit, glancing between the two brothers, “What did he say?”

Now, as it was, Sherlock had no reason to leave. He wished that he could hide himself and John away from prying eyes.

“Sherlock?” came a voice that jarred the detective so soundly that he nearly staggered in place.

“John,” he declared reflexively, dashing to the open door of John's room, sweeping in to a stop, heart pounding. John lay in the bed still, eyes closed, brow crinkled. His hands twitched and sought purchase in the bedclothes.

Sherlock pulled up his chair, close to the bed, and deposited himself there. He reached out to take hold of John’s hand, and the other man squeezed back, unrelentingly so. There was a noise at the door, but Sherlock did not look up.

The room was silent except for the soft murmurs coming from John’s lips.

Sherlock finally looked at the doorway, seeing naught but the luggage Mycroft had brought. He sighed heavily, and folded forward onto the edge of the bed, never letting go of John’s hand.

In the dead of night, John’s questioning awoke him, “Where are we?”

He sat up, bleary eyed, blinking into John’s sleeping face. He waited.

“Where are we?” John asked again.

Sherlock was sure John was still dreaming, but he answered anyway, desperate to communicate somehow, “In a hospital.”

“Why are we here?” John mewled, sounding strangely petulant.

“You… were hurt,” Sherlock swallowed the emotion that threatened to crumple his composure.

“Can we… can we go home?” John all but whispered the last, as if fading away. The tenor of it scared Sherlock somehow, alarm bells going off in his head.

“You can come home with me, to Baker Street, John. You… don’t have to live alone. You don’t have to be alone. Just wake up, please, and we can go where ever you like.”

He reached out to smooth John’s hair because that’s what people do on these occasions, right? He still held John’s hand. It flexed sporadically in his grasp.

“Where are you going?” John almost wept. Sherlock was right on the verge of it as well.

“John, I’m here. It’s Sher… Sherlock. It’s Sherlock,” and he risked a look at room before lowering his voice, and leaning closer to John’s ear, “Come back. Wake up... Just… Do what you must to wake up. I love you.”

“Sh…. Shaun?” John whimpered, and then the tears flowed freely, sobs wracked his body, “No. No!” he cried weakly as if broken.

Sherlock buried his face in the bend of his arm, on the edge of the bed, and fought the urge to scream.

 


	2. Lots of Staring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ATTN: I edited and updated the first chapter as of the posting of this new chapter (01/30/17). I had to expand a touch on Mystrade, because sometimes... Johnlock hurts too much.

It was almost noon. Sherlock stared out of the tall, narrow window. He had been oscillating between two moods over the past ten hours: climbing the walls... or reflective, utter stillness.

“Sherlock?” came a dry, croaky voice from behind.

“John,” Sherlock pivoted on the spot, blinking wide, astonished eyes. His legs felt rubbery when he saw those dark blue orbs squinting about.

John tried to rub at his blurry eyes, but found he couldn’t move his arms. A distant flutter of panic travelled from his stomach to his chest.

“We were on a case. You fell from a boat. You hit your head. You’re in the hospital. You were tied to your bed. I am untying you now. You were flailing in your sleep. I just paged the nurse...” Sherlock had launched into his rapid-fire monologue mode, untying John’s wrists and ankles as he did so.

“Slow down,” John whispered tiredly. Sherlock sat back down in his chair after John was freed. He sat close to John, taking in every detail anew.

John closed his eyes under that gaze, letting out a soft sigh. He began registering the feel of Sherlock’s hand grasping his own. He peeked between lashes, eyelids heavy, gaze falling to their intertwined fingers. He stared.

His survival instinct kicked in, and he felt his mind coming online in disorganized chunks.

“I was flailing?” he murmured, brows furrowed.

“Nightmares,” Sherlock said, and in that one word, John heard something pretty damned scary: naked, intimate understanding. His heart clenched like a fist and throttled like a jackhammer.

After all they had been through together, he had never wanted Sherlock to see that small part of him. He was ashamed of it, and angered by it. In his mental search for why he was in the hospital, he began to remember the dreams in pieces.

_Oh!_

_Oh, no._

_Not just nightmares, then._

John swallowed, mouth dry, closing his eyes, “Sorry you had to see that.”

Sherlock was casually sweeping his thumb back and forth over the top of his hand.

 _Odd_ , John thought. _Not bad, not at all. But odd_.

 _Wait_.

John knew, then, that Sherlock was _embarrassed_ for him. Like,  _inordinately embarrassed._

When Sherlock didn’t say anything after a while, a kind of sad dread tugged at the corners of John’s thought process. John spoke with a deep, reticent finality, eyes still closed, “What is it… Sherlock…? Did I give it all away…” – two, angry, hot tears crept out of the corners of his eyes – “Like this? In a bloody hospital room… in a dream… like a stupid, lovesick idiot… pining after… after someone...”

Sherlock tried to shush his friend, squeezing his hand, leaning into the bedside but John just kept talking.

“Someone who could never… who doesn’t want… that? And now you know…. Fuck. CHRIST! What the fuck…”

“Stop it!” Sherlock startled himself as well as John, who had his face turned away, “I’m holding your hand. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Fuck your pity,” John growled, looking straight at Sherlock with fire in his eyes. He pulled his hand away.

The door opened, and the nurse came in. She immediately sensed the tension, saw the anger and tears on John, and Sherlock’s grave expression, “Give us a minute, please,” Sherlock managed, straightening to a standing position.

“Sure. Take your time. I’ll let the doctor know he’s awake,” and with that she left, shutting the door strategically behind her.

Sherlock distanced himself to stand near the end of John’s bed.

John glowered at the wall now.

“I know you’re scared. You must be,” Sherlock began.

John huffed crudely and muttered something dark under his breath, like, “The fucking nerve of you.” But Sherlock couldn’t be sure.

Sherlock pushed on nonetheless, “But, John, tell me you love me.”

John’s eyes went round in disbelief, head popping up off the pillow, staring at Sherlock as if he’d grown an extra nose. The next instant, he let his head fall back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly. He clenched his jaw, eyebrows tucking upward. He knew he looked dumbstruck, and he was. What was Sherlock playing at?

“Another game?” John queried, trying for cold but knowing he came across as bitter and angry.

“Say it, damnit, John!”

“FINE! Yes, I do,” the army doctor snapped, looking sharply at the world’s only consulting detective, voice dropping then to a gravelly tone, his throat closing around the words, “I love you. Always have, I think… just…”

“Okay, that’s enough. My turn,” – big, dramatic inhale, silver-gold-green eyes shining – “I love you, too, John.”

John’s world stopped and his body seemed to become weightless. He stared openly, mutely.

“As in… romantically, just so we’re clear,” Sherlock rushed to amend his declaration in the building silence.

Sherlock stared back for a painfully long time. He shifted from one foot to the other, cleared his throat.

John blinked rapidly a few times, and finally all of the tension drained from him, and he made a "huh" sound before his next confession, “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock hesitated a moment, then took a step, and then another, endearingly awkward and innately graceful.

John watched him like a hawk, a sense of wonder filled him, and he did not hide the mischevious glint dawning in his eyes. Sherlock sat down, rather prim and proper in the chair next to John.

John raised his brows, upturned his hand in a silent request.

Sherlock looked at it, the corners of his mouth turning up very slightly. He placed his hand in John’s firm, warm grasp. They both watched the hands fold together, and then matched each other’s gazes with tender affection and unabashed, primal curiosity.

What would it be like? The Kiss? The sex? Their Life? What was in store for them? Whatever it was, Sherlock thought as he raised John’s hand to his lips, it would be Forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know what happened between Shaun and John, and why John always says, "I'm not gay.".... read John's gay backstory in 'A Learning Curve' or 'How Sherlock Seduced John Without Trying' by emmish and starrysummernights on AO3. The fic itself is quite fun and unique AF.
> 
> For clarity's sake, I am not referring to the Johnlock portion or what happens thereafter in A Learning Curve, but the Shaun/John history arc! The Shaun backstory made soooo much sense for John's character in the BBC show. It provided depth and reason, and explained his entire relationship dynamic with Sherlock.
> 
> I was so inspired by it! I still am! Mad love to the authors. <3
> 
> There will be at least one more ficlet by me featuring this Shaun/John backstory. It is truly original and so emotionally satisfying! I can't recommend it enough.


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